In both of the talks that I’ve attended recently by writer, R.J. Ellory, I was fascinated to hear the way he describes three categories of novels. I realised that even if I hadn’t classified them so clearly before this, I recognised that this is actually how I view them too:

1: the ‘airport ones’ that you might take on holiday with you, or curl up at home with on a cold wet day. These are escapist entertainment, often following an established formula. They are quickly devoured, enjoyed, and as quickly forgotten. They do ‘what it says on the tin’ and serve a specific purpose. They are ‘give-away’ items that you can pass on to friends or charity shops without a qualm.

2: literary fiction, which is often described as ‘style over content’. These books might sometimes need a bit more thought and effort while you read them, but they will make a long-term impact on the reader, and will often be re-read quite soon, not because their plot has already been forgotten, but in order to savour the beautiful phrases and sentences and admire the sheer skill in the use of the English language. Each subsequent reading is likely to reveal more treasures.

3: a combination of 1 and 2 – beautiful and skilful use of language, but more commercial, with, perhaps, a more immediately accessible and gripping plot. R.J. Ellory aims at being in this category, and it is certainly where I’d have placed his novel, A Quiet Belief in Angels. (the only one I’ve read so far)

I was reminded again of these categories a couple of days ago, when I came across the link to this article on the on-line BookSeller: >“Chick lit offers fully rounded heroines for fully rounded women”. Apparently, >“the latest publishing phenomenon to sweep America, which has just arrived over here, features a new heroine: the young woman who is seriously overweight – and doesn’t care.”

I don’t tend to read Chic Lit myself, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the dress-size of its protagonists. It’s the formulaic plots that don’t hold much interest for me. (Having said that, I used to adore Georgette Heyer’s predictable Regency romances in my younger days, and their heroines were always beautiful, and they always won the dark, sardonic hero in the end.)

Nowadays, I prefer to feel that I’m learning something new from a novel, whichever category it might fall into. I’m currently nearing the end of a very enjoyable novel (on CD) Amenable Women, by Mavis Cheek. One of her themes is the importance (or not) of beauty for a woman, particularly how plain women are perceived in our culture now, and in Tudor times.

I was particularly interested that Mavis Cheek had chosen this as a key theme in her novel, because it also plays a part in my new novel, Paper Lanterns.

There seem to be a few themes in this particular post: categories/genres of novels; possibilities of lots of sub-divisions in each of the three I’ve named – and a whole lot more to say about what people are looking for when they pick up a novel.

1. litlove Says:
   November 8th, 2009 at 8:57 pm

   R. J. Ellory is one of those writers I keep meaning to read and then forget about. I like the division into three, as the tendency is often to split book categories into just two - mass market and literary - whereas there are probably more categories than three if you think about it! I don’t read much chick lit because I think it’s very tied to stages of life. I don’t want to read about young single women trying to find a husband because I’m not there myself, but I’m always interested in more profound books that start to question why beauty is seen as so important and why women’s self-esteem oscillates so wildly according to genre and fashion. I read one Mavis Cheek whose title I now can’t recall, and enjoyed it quite a lot. Good luck with exploring the prominence of beauty in your own novel - it’s something we seriously need to think about.

2. admin Says:
   November 9th, 2009 at 12:57 am

   Thank you for this thoughtful comment - I’m in full agreement with you that there are many more than 3 categories, but I think these are quite useful as a starting point for further classification. If I did set off down that road I’d be going round in circles, and branching off all over the place. Why have I suddenly had an image of the Mandlebrott Set in my head? I’m no good at maths - my school put us firmly into one of two boxes, (’Science’ or’ Art’) but in recent years I’ve been reading up on some of the things I’d missed out on entirely. I still not much good at maths, but I now have some understanding of how and why it works at higher levels- and I get very excited when I come across beautiful theories.
   Physical Beauty and ideas thereof- Mmm I can’t claim to have explored this at any great depth, but it might give readers some light food for thought!